But then I’m coming back in from lunch and I walk through the lobby of our station and see a guy waiting in a chair looking suspiciously like Neil Gaiman. First it seems too surreal to be possible — like, that’s not how it works, you don’t just think about somebody famous and then they appear in front of you. But then I realize it really is him and my next reaction is to be embarrassed to see him, like somehow he knows I’ve just been reading about his escapades with his naked wife on my lunch break, which of course is crazy, but it’s what comes into my head.

The first notes in the longest and slowest piece of music in history, designed to go on for 639 years, are being played on a German church organ on Wednesday. The three notes, which will last for a year-and-a-half, are just the start of the piece, called As Slow As Possible.